Cursed Moon

by Jaye Wells

  “You remain a delight, Katherine,” he said in a tone that made it clear I was anything but. “I wish you luck on this case. It’s not going to be easy on you.”

  I frowned at him in the process of gathering my coat. “What does that mean?”

  He slipped another cigarette between those lying lips. “Once the smoke clears and you find yourself the big hero, you’re going to realize you couldn’t have done it without me.” He leaned forward with the cigarette hanging from his lips. “You’re going to owe me.”

  I snatched the smoke and broke it in half. “I will never owe you a fucking thing.”

  “You owe John Volos.” He sat back and raised a brow. “How’s that feel?”

  “The only thing I owe either of you is a bullet.”

  “Give him my regards when you see him.” He was trying to get a reaction. To see if I’d show my hand. But I’d learned how to play poker from the best.

  I looked my uncle directly in his glittering eyes. “Why don’t you ask Mayor Owens to tell him now that you two are such pals?”

  He smiled. “Why waste Owens’s time when you’ll run straight to John to deliver my message yourself. You always were so needy where he was concerned. Panting over him like a bitch in heat.”

  I pivoted on my heel and marched toward the door. He was quiet until the guard opened the door. I could see Morales standing in the hallway. Just before I cleared the doorjamb Uncle Abe called, “Kate?”

  I stopped and turned. “What?”

  “You said you walked away from magic.”

  I turned fully and raised my brows. “So?”

  His eyes narrowed. “It’s still there around the edges.”

  My stomach dropped three stories.

  “But it’s weak.” He made a dismissive noise with his mouth. “A pity. You could have been a formidable wizard.”

  I lifted my chin. “Like you?”

  His lips tilted up. “Indeed.”

  I looked around the room. “And look where you ended up.”

  Abe leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands on the table. “These shackles won’t be on me forever, Katie Girl.” He smiled wide, showing off his large, white teeth. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you once you catch Dionysus.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Say hi to Danny Boy for me.”

  I saluted him with my middle finger and slipped through the door before the manipulative bastard could launch another parting shot.

  Chapter Twelve

  Morales was quiet the entire ferry ride back. As much as the guy liked to tease me, he also had the good sense to know when to shut the fuck up. My hands gripped the railing until my knuckles ached. For a few moments I indulged in a fantasy of imagining it was Uncle Abe’s throat.

  Once we exited the ferry and were back by his car, Morales pulled out his phone and held it up to the sky to check the signal. I guess he found one because next thing I knew, he was speaking to Gardner through the mouthpiece. Leaning against the SUV’s bumper, I listened as he gave her a nuts-and-bolts version of what had happened. He left out the embarrassing details that made me look like an emotional wreck, bless him.

  Instead of watching the water spread out like a stainless-steel ocean, I raised my face to the sky. The midday sun stabbed at my corneas, seagulls shrieked like banshees, and the cold wind felt pushier than it had earlier. Despite the less-than-idyllic scene, I realized it was worlds better than the sliver of sky visible through Abe’s cell bars. He might be the king of Crowley State Penitentiary, but I was a pauper with access to the whole world. That freedom gave me the upper hand. I had choices. He did not.

  And since I was the one with choices, I decided to take the meeting with Abe at face value. As far as the Johnson case went, he’d offered very little in the way of convincing evidence. Sure, we’d check out his story about Dionysus, but I didn’t plan to take his story as gospel.

  Morales nudged me. I glanced up, ripped out of my thoughts. “She wants to talk to you?”

  I cleared my throat and put the phone to my ear. “Sir?”

  “What’s your read on this?”

  I chewed on my lip for a moment. “He’s fucking with us.”

  “That’s my gut reaction, too.” The sound of her chair creaking back cut through the line. “Unfortunately, the mayor has called a meeting. You and Morales need to meet me at City Hall in an hour so we can debrief him.”

  I closed my eyes. What I needed was a stiff drink, not a meeting with the fucking mayor. “Any way we can put him off?”

  “Not a prayer.”

  An hour later Mayor Owens slammed a newspaper on the desk. The headline shouted the news about Aphrodite Johnson’s temple being robbed by a criminal they dubbed the Aphrodisiac Bandit. “Anyone want to explain to me why I had to hear about this asshole from Abraxas Prospero instead of my own fucking police force?”

  The Honorable Skip Owens, mayor of Babylon, Ohio, was not an attractive man. His nose was too big, his chin too weak, but what he lacked in looks, he made up for with charisma and sheer force of personality. He had salt-and-pepper executive hair and wore a nice navy suit with a tie as red as his Republican blood. On his right hand he wore a signet ring depicting the seal of the city of Babylon. On it, a lion with two emerald eyes guarded a gate bearing the city’s name. Judging from Owens’s proud posture, he considered himself the king of this particular concrete jungle.

  “Sir, with all due respect, we’ve been briefing Captain Eldritch of the situation almost daily.”

  Owens turned to glare at Eldritch. “Well?”

  “Sir, I handed the Johnson case to Special Agent Gardner but she has not provided updates as promised.” He shot a glance in the direction of his boss, Chief Stanley Adams.

  Chief Adams sat stoic as a statue beside his employee. As near as I could tell, the man rarely got his hands dirty with Cauldron politics, preferring instead to court the favor of wealthy Mundane citizens in the nicer parts of Babylon. He’d even lobbied to have the Cauldron’s violent crime statistics kept separate from those for the rest of the city because, he claimed, they were an anomaly due to the high percentage of Adepts who lived in that part of town. Not surprisingly, like all the brass in Ohio state and local law enforcement, he was a Righty.

  Gardner’s posture stiffened. Standing next to Morales and at the back of the room, I shot him a worried look. Watching a bunch of power brokers play political hot potato wasn’t my idea of fun. Especially since we didn’t have the luxury of time. With less than a week remaining until the Halloween Blue Moon and the threat of a possible Raven at large, we needed action, not the blame game. Not that I was going to be the one to point that out to the four people in Babylon who could guarantee I’d never find work again.

  “All right, let’s try another tack. What did Abe Prospero have to say today?”

  All eyes turned toward me. I cleared my throat and stepped forward.

  “Mr. Mayor,” I began.

  He held up a hand. “Who the hell are you?”

  I blinked. “Detective Kate Prospero, sir.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “Abe’s niece, right? I do not appreciate being your messaging service, Detective.”

  I nodded. “Sorry, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You were in the middle of the Ramses Bane case, as well, correct?”

  Grimacing, I nodded again.

  “Why do you keep coming up in all the cases that cause a pain in my ass lately, Prospero?”

  I shrugged. “Just talented, I guess.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Proceed.”

  “According to my uncle, the theft was perpetrated by a man who believes he is the modern incarnation of the god Dionysus. He’s a Raven—a wizard who robs other wizards.”

  Owens frowned. “So he’s insane?”

  I nodded. “It would certainly seem so, if Abe’s telling the truth.”

  He tilted his head. “You don’t bel
ieve your uncle, then?”

  “Not especially.” I shook my head. “He’s not exactly known for his honesty, you know?”

  Owens pursed his lips and crossed his arms. “I’d agree with you if I hadn’t received correspondence from this Dionysus myself.”

  My mouth fell open. From the corner of my eye, I saw that everyone else had stiffened like pointer dogs on the trail of a juicy squirrel.

  “He contacted you, sir?” Eldritch asked carefully.

  The mayor nodded and went to retrieve something from his desk. He shuffled something around in the drawer before removing an envelope. “This letter arrived this morning.”

  He brought it to me. Not wanting to get more fingerprints on it than necessary, I pulled the cuff of my shirt up to cover my fingers as I took it. Moving toward the meeting table in the middle of the room, I placed the envelope on the surface. “Morales?” I asked, looking up. “I have a pair of gloves in my pack. Can you bring them to me?”

  He nodded and brought them over while everyone else circled the table. With the gloves on my hands, I opened the envelope and pulled out the sheet of paper. A Polaroid fell out on its face, but I ignored that for the moment.

  The missive itself resembled a ransom note, with each letter cut out of a magazine. Not sure why the guy bothered when any computer and printer would suffice, but he obviously loved a little drama.

  Mayor Owens,

  The Blue Moon’s coming. Are you ready for a party? I’ll bring the refreshments.

  Sincerely,

  Dionysus

  My stomach flip-flopped in my gut. Not because of the threat, but because that short note confirmed that Uncle Abe hadn’t been lying. And for some reason, knowing he was telling the truth about wanting to help me scared me more than the idea he’d been lying.

  I shook off that thought. First matter of business was finding Dionysus. I’d deal with being in Abe’s debt once we’d arrested the asshole.

  “How did this arrive?” I asked.

  Owens shrugged. “Through the mail.”

  I flipped over the envelope; there was no postmark. I showed it to Gardner. “Planted it in the mailroom, probably,” I said.

  “Sir,” Gardner said, “we’ll need to take this and have our lab wiz look it over.”

  “Not so fast,” Chief Adams said. “This is a BPD case.”

  Gardner’s eyes widened. “If it’s a BPD case, why did your captain hand it over to my team?”

  “That was when we thought the case was about some potions being stolen. That letter is clearly a threat to the entire city, which means it’s a BPD matter.”

  All eyes turned toward Owens. He rubbed his lower lip with his finger. “What did he take from Aphrodite Johnson?”

  I exchanged an anxious glance with Gardner. Once this was out, there was no way the case wasn’t going to become a media circus. “He took a large stash of a potion we believe makes the user sexually aggressive. Extremely so.”

  The mayor’s face paled. “So this man who just threatened my city has a stockpile of rape potions?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The bad news hung in the air between for a good thirty seconds while Owens considered the angles. Probably he was wondering how to play this so he came out looking like the hero. Finally, he snapped at Eldritch, “I want an APB for this asshole and his name plastered on every TV set and street corner in the city.”

  The captain shifted uncomfortably. “That’s going to be a problem, sir.”

  “And why is that, Captain?” Owens crossed his arms.

  “Because we don’t know what he looks like,” Gardner offered. “We don’t even know his real name.”

  Without answering, Owens flipped over the picture I’d forgotten about. He handed the picture to Eldritch. He showed it to the chief and Gardner. The three of them exchanged a worried look.

  “May I?” I asked, taking it in my gloved hands.

  The image was grainy, like it had been taken with a vintage camera. In the center, a shirtless man whose torso, neck, and arms were littered with tattoos stood with his arms spread like Jesus on the cross. His head was back but his eyes were aimed at the camera, daring you to look away. His black hair was wild, and a large beard clung to his jaw. Despite the unkempt appearance of his hair and beard, his torso was toned with muscle and a pair of suspenders lay over broad shoulders and down to the waistband of his low-slung jeans. He wasn’t traditionally handsome by any means, but he exuded untamed sensuality and recklessness.

  I shook myself. The last thing I’d expected was such a visceral response to a simple picture.

  Morales pulled the photo from my hands. “He looks familiar.”

  I looked again and shrugged. “Maybe.” Something tickled at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t access it.

  “Now you have the picture,” the mayor said, “I want to know who this asshole is. I want to know why he’s picked my city. But most of all, I want every available law enforcement agency in this town working to find this Sinister son of a bitch.”

  Sinister. Hearing my city’s mayor use such a derogatory slang for Adepts made me cringe. Granted, Dionysus wasn’t exactly a stellar example of my kind, but still, Owens’s attitude reflected that of so many of the city’s officials. According to too many Mundanes in power, Adepts were to be either controlled or feared. Usually both.

  Eldritch stood. “Yes, sir. We’ll have his photo plastered all over the city within the hour.”

  “And you,” Owens said to Gardner, “find out what he intends to do with that potion.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, ignoring a glare from Eldritch and the chief.

  “All right,” Owens said. “Keep me updated on progress. And make no mistake about it: I expect progress yesterday, am I understood?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  October 21

  First Quarter

  The next afternoon I was sucking down the last of a soda from the late lunch we grabbed on our way to the park. Even though we were sitting on a tight deadline until all hell broke loose, I was trying to enjoy the abnormally sunny weather with the windows down. Morales looked at ease, too, with the wind ruffling his hair as he drove along the river.

  “Yo,” he said over a mouthful of fries. “You ever wonder what it would have been like if you hadn’t left the life?”

  I paused with the straw halfway to my mouth. “What? You mean the coven?”

  He nodded and shot me a side glance.

  I shrugged. “Probably be dead, most likely.”

  “I don’t know. You’re pretty smart, Cupcake. Maybe you would have been running the whole show by now.”

  “That had been the plan,” I muttered.

  “Huh?”

  I sighed and looked at him. “I said, that had been the plan. Abe was grooming me to take over the coven.”

  Morales whistled low. “But you left anyway?”

  I nodded. “Like I said, I doubt I would have survived long enough to put my management skills to the test.” I shook off the heavy feeling the conversation lowered over my skin. “Besides, if I hadn’t left I never would have had the pleasure of dealing with your annoying ass.”

  He flashed me a sideways grin. “You love my ass.”

  I glanced toward the ass in question. “It has certain charms. Too bad you insist on talking so much and ruining it all.”

  He laughed then, crumpling up his trash and stashing it in the bag. With a jolt, I realized this hastily gobbled lunch was as close to a date as I’d had in months. The last official date I’d had was with a mortician named Barry Finkleman, whose idea of a good time was taking me to a funeral trade show to ogle embalming equipment. That thought was depressing enough to make me wish I had some whiskey to add to my soda.

  “What’s wrong? You’ve got that frown that usually means you’re thinking too much.”

  I gave him a dirty look and chugged the rest of my drink. “After that meeting with the mayor, I’m just hoping LM’s gonna have some
thing to help us find this Dionysus guy.”

  Morales pulled the car toward the side of the road and pushed the gear into P. “Only one way to find out.” With that he shut off the ignition and hopped out. As he jogged around the front of the SUV, I took a couple of seconds to admire the rear end we’d just discussed. It really was a world-class ass.

  In the next instant Morales stopped and turned toward the car, staring at me from the curb. He tapped his watch. “Tick-tock, Cupcake.”

  I grabbed my bag and climbed out of the car. “You got cash?”

  He frowned. “Remind me to introduce you to reimbursement forms when we get back.”

  “Hey, you’re the higher pay grade here. It’s up to you to deal with that bullshit.”

  He shook his head and turned away like he knew pushing the issue was a waste of time. Smart guy.

  I jogged to catch up with him in time to walk through the gated entrance to the park. Well, park is a generous term for what was really just a dirt lot dotted with a few benches and bent metal structures that used to be swing sets and seesaws. Back in the day, it used to be the playground for the families of those who worked at Babylon Steel. Now it was a nighttime recreation area for potion junkies.

  But we’d arrived during the day, so all the hex-heads were passed out in their rabbit warrens waiting for night to fall so they could get their next fix. The only people we found there that afternoon were the very ones we’d been looking for: Little Man and Mary.

  While they technically were two people, the pair came as a single unit. Mary was a six-foot-tall tank of a woman with the intellect of a child, and Little Man was the size of a baby with the intellect of an adult. Their mother had been a fertility potion junky, but her dealer had fucked her over by giving her an experimental potion. Unfortunately, baby Mary had grown too large in utero and killed her mama on the way out.